How to create a photography website? Things should consider

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Most photography artists enjoy nothing of the commercial part of their activity, which is not a surprise after all nobody pays you for the time you spend looking for new business opportunities. As a freelancer, getting clients on the phone is not only a long process. It can also end your nerves. Here, we will step-by-step guide on how to create a photography website.

Would not it be much better if the potential clients simply found you on their own and contacted you by their own will? Well, a website can precisely do this: once it is operational. The website does the job of finding new customers for you, while you go about your business … which is to take great photos.

This is one of the most necessary points to take into account when creating a photography website. Not all websites serve us. In fact, many websites can give us more problems than help.

Table of Contents

How to create a photography website?

Basically, we have two options:

Create it yourselves
Hire a web designer or developer

Let’s see in depth what each option entails:

Create our photography web page yourselves: We will need to have a minimum knowledge of web development and design. In addition, we will have to do the maintenance ourselves and hire the domain and hosting.

If we also want to have an online store, it is an added problem. I, who work on my own web pages and have some online stores. I have no desire to repeat the experience of creating them and dealing with the problems that you are encountering. You must choose mobile friendly themes if you go with WordPress.

Hire a web designer or developer: Requires an economic investment. Many times it is very expensive, and it is not a guarantee that the result will be good. We will have the added problem of creating dependency. Every time we have to upload new content, we must contact the designer to upload it online. Personally, it is an option that I discard since I have had many problems caused by bad professionals.

Do not despair! I already know that the two options are bad.

Things should consider:

Relatively recently, I discovered the best solution to avoid having headaches, spending a lot of money, or giving a bad image.

Therefore, we must be clear about what we need to have our photography website and the requirements we need. Below, I give you a list of what I think you need to have a good website focused on photography.

Show our work (Galleries).
Professional image.
Own domain.
Share on social networks.
Possibility of offering our services.
Facilitate contact with us.
Position in the search engines.
Blog / space to create content.
Responsive.
Statistics with Google.
High loading speed.
Ease to upload content.
Online store where to sell our photographs.
Multi language.

I’m going to reel, point by point, each one of the requirements that we should demand from a photography page:

Show our work (Galleries): I think there is no discussion on this point. As photographers, we need to show our work, so the website should have a gallery where we can show the photographs we have made.

Professional image: Showing the images or presenting the content in any way does not help us, our photography page must transmit an image of professionalism, with an aesthetic and orderly content.

Own domain: For me this is fundamental. In the first place, if we do not have a domain of our own, we will not position the same in the search engines as Google-. But in addition, it gives a lot more feeling of professionalism to have a domain of its own than a sub-domain. For example, xyz.com is better than xyz.blogspot.com.

Share on social networks: Social networks are essential to make a minimum of digital marketing, so our page must have the options to share on major social networks, besides generating thumbnails adaptable to them.

Possibility of offering our services: Besides teaching our work, from my point of view, the website must have an option so that we can offer our services and the client can hire them, directly, from our website. Putting a text saying ” if you want to hire me to send me an email to … ” is shabby and generates a bad image of ours.

Facilitate contact with us: This is basic. There should be a contact section with a simple form that allows the client to write to us from our photography website.

Positioning in search engines: Although we have no idea of digital marketing, it is essential that our professional photography page meets the requirements of Google to a position in the search results. Not only to position our content but also position our own name. If someone searches you on Google, your professional website should be the first result.

Space to create content / Blog: Web pages for professional photographers must have a section where we can create written content, both to make content marketing to capture traffic, and to explain and show what we know – which is still another way to do content marketing- and generate personal brand. That space must be the blog.

Responsive: This is basic nowadays and means that the website is adapted for viewing on any device and screen. Any web page of today needs to be responsive to the position in the search engines. Besides that, it is indispensable to offer the user comfortable navigation.

Stats with Google: We need our professional photography website to have a visitor statistics system that is compatible with Google Analytics. With this, we can understand who visits us, the visit time we have, the most viewed pages, the origin of our visits … And a lot of other data that will help us to capture and retain traffic on our website.

High loading speed: Another fundamental point to consider. Photography websites sometimes tend to have loading problems since they have many images and some of them may be in high quality. Nothing bothers internet users more than a page loading slow. In addition, it is an SEO requirement to appear in the top positions of the search engines. The speed of the load depends on several factors: the Hosting, the structure and system of the page and the content.

Easy to upload content: Now there are many simple web editors that make it easy for any user to upload content to a page. Our photography website must have a simple and simple system to upload content in it, edit texts or images.

Online store where to sell our photographs (Optional): From my point of view, it is an indispensable requirement that I need to have my professional photography website. But I understand that not everyone can need it. In my case, I want to sell my photographs from my own website in a simple and comfortable way for my clients. Both physical and digital photographs.

Multi-language: Our website must be able to be displayed in different languages.

These are the indispensable requirements that, from my point of view, web pages have to have for professional photographers.

Creating your professional website is easier than you think, especially if you use a website creator. See how flexible and easy to use they can be.

Advantages of a photography website

Create your own personal brand: You can highlight advertising your specialty. Position yourself as the best in a subject not too broad, rather than try to play all the themes.

Channel: Your website becomes your communications center for your clients. You can also connect your site to all your profiles on social networks.

Make it easy for hiring online: Make it easy for people to hire your services on the website. Create standard packages designed for the needs of your customers. The best of all? You will not spend more nights in white worried about the delinquent clients.

References: Presume of the projects already made for other clients.

Can you make my website without being a computer expert?

Generally speaking, yes. In recent years, several excellent solutions for creating websites have appeared on the market, some of which are great for photographers. The designs of some of these creators are very professional but others not so much.

One good thing is that most of these services offer a free plan. Logically, it has restricted access to several functionalities, but the ones it offers are usually enough to get familiar with the software.

And the best? Well, they save a lot of time. You need not configure FTP access, nor maintain a database, nor do you need to deal with an interface designed for geeks. You can also forget about security updates, something to constantly worry about in more complex alternatives like WordPress. The creators of websites take care of all this for you.

Logically, this simplicity has some limitations, since you do not have access to the same functionalities and tools as the most advanced content managers, such as Drupal or WordPress. Fortunately, many of these features are not indispensable in something as simple as a photographer’s portfolio.

Increase the visibility of your free photo website

If you launch your photography website, it is for people to find you and see your work. Surely you are interested in letting you know, gain followers, and potential customers. For that, you can use social networks, but you can also work on web positioning (SEO) of your website.

Final comments

Making your photography website for yourself or hiring a professional to do it for you is a personal decision. If you initially do it yourself, logically it will be cheaper, which does not prevent you later, hire a professional designer to refine or expand the website. The gained experience will allow you to know and better understand the whole process.

Although the habit does not make the monk, having a good image helps a lot in life. Fortunately, creating good images is having a good image that helps a lot in life. Fortunately, creating good images is exactly your strong point, is not it?